Site menu:

Don’t get me wrong, the ThirteenCelebration conference was a great event. Just getting the chance to hear Jane Goodall and Jean-Michel Cousteau speak about the amazing natural world and their sustained hope that we can undo much of the damage we’ve done to it was in and of itself worth it. That and being able to listen to the passion of Diane Ravitch and Deb Meier as they discussed the ills of education gave me more than enough to think about.

But here’s the thing that’s giving me the most angst. (Hey, I haven’t been too angsty in a while, have I?) For all of the experts and scholars and pundits who were staking out a part of the conversation about educational reform, I couldn’t help leaving there wondering how many of them really have a sense of the changes that are afoot here. I looked up a whole bunch of the names of the presenters and I could only find a handful that have any real Read/Write Web footprint that would allow me to consider them to be a part of my network. And worse, it was painfully obvious by their death by PowerPoint presentation styles that their own adoption of technology as a communication tool not to mention a networked learning tool left a great deal to be desired. The governors, the state superintendents, the consultants…from none of them did I get the sense that they could give a great response to a request to model their uses of technology to teach and learn effectively, especially in the context of networks.

All of which raise a number of questions:

First, am I a snob? Out to lunch? I mean it. I feel like it sometimes when I go to an education conference with 6,000 attendees and virtually no Internet access where almost no one who is presenting is modeling anything close to great pedagogy with technology. (That doesn’t mean, btw, that they are not great teachers or thinkers.) Where just about the only technologies represented on the vendor floor deal with assessment or classroom displays. I mean, I know I’m a one-trick pony in terms of what my frame of reference is (so no need to remind me again), but shouldn’t I be at least getting some sense that the people who are making the decisions understand on some level what we here are jammering about every day, the transformation that’s occurring, the amazing potentials of this? I feel like I have to be missing something here, that it must be me.

Which leads to the second question which is how in god’s name can we talk seriously about 21st Century skills for kids if we’re not talking 21st Century skills for educators first? The more I listened, the less I heard in terms of how we make the teaching profession as a whole even capable of teaching these “skills” to kids. Sure, there were mentions of upgrading teacher preparation programs and giving teachers additional time in the school day to collaborate, etc. But the URGENCY was all around the kids. Shouldn’t the URGENCY be all about the teachers right now?

Finally, I was struck by how difficult it felt to accept much of what I was hearing because, and this is something that is really concerning me (seriously), few if any of these folks had the network creds to be “trusted.” Now I know this is an admission that is going to get me in trouble, and it likely should. But it is also a consequence of being rooted so deeply in this network. It’s not that I distrust their “traditional” creds out of hand, but it’s almost like for me, these days, if you’re not doing at least a little bit of social, networked learning and publishing that I can tap into and track and engage with, I’m just not as inclined to buy in when you’re talking about reforming education with or without technology.

Which leads to the following conclusions. First, (and this really has little to do with the larger point of this post but is stuck in my head) if you want to do one thing to save the world, become a vegetarian, today. Right now. As Cousteau said, any time you eat a steak or a chicken, you are cutting down a tree in the Amazon. Beef cattle graze, use up the land, then they plant soybeans to feed the chickens being farmed all over the world. Rainforests gone. Our carnivorousness is killing the planet. That means no pot roast nachos either. End of sermon.

And, second, if you want your ideas to resonate with me and to be taken seriously, don’t just talk. Engage. Publish. Converse. Add your voice to the network of people who are living these ideas every day. I’ll use Mr. Stager as an example here, since I know he’ll most likely have something to say on the topic. I’d heard of Gary before he started blogging, but the fact that he’s now willing to put his ideas out here and invest in the network, whether I agree with him or not, garners my respect and makes me more open to his ideas. I can think of a number of folks in this arena who I can’t say that about.

166 Comments

Will,
A thoughtful post here (not that your others aren’t, but this is particularly so). I think you are right on the money when you said that our concern should be teaching 21st Century skills to teachers first.

I was recently at a conference and was shocked by the number who did not know what a blog was. (There were more that didn’t know what a wiki was, but I can understand that one a bit more.) If our teachers aren’t using this professionally – personally – then how can we expect them to use this in the classroom?

Also, I agree with you about making your voice heard. My concern is for these new bloggers. When I first started blogging, I nearly gave up because I didn’t think anyone was reading what I had to say. I think that we need to offer as much support to these new bloggers (and, by extension, new Twitterers) as possible. I know there aren’t enough hours in the day, but even a quick comment of “Good thought here” might change the way an educator sees the world.

The point of these tools is to be heard. If the user does not feel heard, then they may cease to share – which is a true tragedy indeed.

I know this is vain, but I track when people mention my book or my blog, and I try to comment on at least 5-10 new bloggers blogs each week. Just a short little, “hey, thanks for reading,” type thing. I hope it makes a difference because I agree with you. We need to support these folks as much as we can.

Hello,
I agree whole heartly with Susan. We must find time in the school day/year to teach the teacher first about the newest and ever changing technology. Not because we need to keep up with the kids. But because we need to be sure all kids have the same exposure to technology as other students with just a little more money than most and can afford the special gagets that enables them to be on top.

I don’t fault you for not trusting folks who want to change education, but don’t have the technology piece at least a minor part of their method of communication or their plans. But members of the blogosphere, like you and me, have to realize that we represent only one facet of the entire school reform movement. Technology has to be a part of the changes in education, but I don’t think that technology is the beginning and the end of that change. We have a responsibility to try to bring them toward technology through our efforts and educate them, and we also have a responsibility to listen to them.

As for the part about needing 21st century educators before we can have 21st century learning, I couldn’t agree more!! Until we have a technology component in teaching techniques that is as common as a chalk board was, how can we expect our kids to truly become 21st century learners.

I think you’re right to feel frustrated. Many of the tools used to form 21st Century networks are literally months old…and often people in leadership roles have a lifetime of experience with a different set of tools.

What I find most interesting is your idea of “cred”. Does someone have less “cred” because they are not “in the network”?

I wonder more and more how much “cred” is given to those who have spent lots of years researching exactly what you discuss and how little they are represented here?

Is it possible that we are asking “them” to come to “us” and join our network as opposed to finding outside ideas and bringing them in?

I just wonder if we’re not a bit closed. Sure you look for folks who mention you and others with whom you agree, and perhaps even higher-profile folks who disagree, but what about the really darned smart people that have never heard of you?

I spent a few years in the blogoworld before jumping into a Ph.D. program and I’m learning names I’d never heard of before and that’s because they’re in their own network.

There’s a divide of networks. We’ve got ours, they’ve got theirs, and there are others out there. They just function differently in terms of means of communication. They’re a bit less synchronous and typically use more than 140 characters.

And why is Dr. Stager one of a very few academics represented in this network? Who spans the two?

Chris…I think you nail it. Thanks for adding those thoughts. I’m worried that I am “a bit closed.” So this post is a check in of sorts. And there is a divide of networks, no doubt. But let me ask you this. While I agree that I should live more in that world, is it appropriate for them to live in this one as well? Is this conversation that we are having in this network a necessary ingredient that is missing in the conversations in those other networks?

Great question…but in the context of what we’re talking about here, I think the better question might be “SHOULD someone have less cred because they are not in the network?” Are we at the point were anyone engaging in serious discussions of school reform MUST have a practical knowledge of networked learning in order to be taken seriously? (That may become a separate blog post…) I get taken to task for not having a historic context for school reform, and, btw, I think it is a fair criticism. It does and no doubt should lessen my influence in the larger discussion. But is that now true for the other side of that coin as well? Have we reached that point where these shifts must now become a part of the context for the big picture conversation?

Chris, I really appreciated your comment. I don’t think there’s much to be gained by sounding exclusive or disdaining others for their lack of sophistication in this networked world. Instead, we have to encourage, invite, and demonstrate.

I regularly work with high school science teachers, helping them to realize the potential of these new tools in their teaching. I start out each session by hearing from them – what have they tried? what web sites do they use? have they tried blogging or wikis? Most often, they have not and I register the frightened looks on their faces. I would get nowhere fast by discouraging them over their lack of insight. Far better to mine them for the expertise they do have and build on that, one sensible step at a time. There are indeed a lot of smart people out there – researchers, teachers, and fellow travelers – and communication between and among us comes in many forms. We just have to keep pushing for more, and more effective ways, to talk.

As for you being closed, notice I refer to us being closed. That’s sort of how we operate, I suppose. It’s not intentional, we just tend to gravitate towards those who agree.

Here’s my deal. I’ve been running in two worlds. I’ve been running in the edublogoworld and also the academic world. Both places have very distinct cultures and norms/mores. They also have different goals and ideas of success.

What I have a hard time doing is convincing the amazingly smart people in the “academic” (and by that of course I mean the U.S. brick-and-mortar higher education system) world to come over and chat with the amazingly smart people in the twitter/blog network, because they don’t see the value.

Engaging over “here” does nothing to help tenure, it does nothing to earn respect in that world. Most academics spend time impressing other academics, not worrying about us over here.

This is why sometimes I feel like I’m spinning my wheels trying to convince both sides to talk to each other.

You are right on point here. Participating in the amazingly engaging world of twitter/blog networks does very little for your academic career (in fact I should be writing a paper right now). However, I do it because it connects me with people who are learning through sharing, something that is typically not done very well at the University. Typically, academics see information / knowledge as scarce and they like to control it. Seriously, I was talking to one of my highly respected colleague about sharing, and his comment was ‘why would you want to share your information.’ Academics, is a much different world.

Part of me wonders if this barrier between the academic and the k12 school world online is reflective of the barriers offline?

It seems the two “worlds” are mostly different spheres, and yet we BOTH have so much to learn from one another.

(One of the things I find interesting is that in the “academic” library environment (college level) there is quite a bit of blogging going on in some circles, and academic librarians seem to be pretty progressive in that regard. But I read a similar frustration in some of their posts in bringing along some of their academic colleagues/instructors at the college level into the web 2.0 environments.)

Ironically, I find myself discovering more and more “academic” texts on my own via blogging and connecting online, than I ever did prior to blogging. And so I am discovering voices I should have been aware of, but only am finding them because of being part of this online environment.

One of the values of blogging as a reflective and connective tool is that it allows/encourages us to probe more academic texts and resources that others are sharing, long past our “degree plans” and advanced degrees. Sharing the knowledge in practice makes it live in a useful, at point of need way.

I also am reaching the point where if I’m at a session with no internet access, or too many powerpoint slides, the speaker has to be a really incredible teacher or presenter for me to really feel engaged in it. I just expect more “richness” in my learning(as Darren Draper put it in his video).

Any interest in joining us in our 24 Hour Earth Day 2008 Webcastathon? We’re recruiting folks from around the world to take an hour long shift and moderate a conversation centering around the topic of mother earth. Our planning page and sign up schedule may be perused at:

Please don’t ever stop ranting, Will. I have been following your blog since NECC in Atlanta and other writings of yours for the last few years. It is often through rants that we get others to see our views, understand our passion and maybe sit up and take some notice of what we are talking about. I just returned from MACUL (Michigan’s state tech conference) in Grand Rapids, MI. I am the leader of a grant program titled MI Champions Project. Each school could bring a team of no more than 5 people to the tech conference and become part of a technology leaders campaign in our schools. The key was that no more than one member could have attended the state conference within the last 2 years. It was interesting to travel with these “newbies” to technology. Your reference to being a snob kind of hit home. I felt at times like I was speaking another language and that most of what I said just wasn’t being understood. There were moments in our 8 hour drive home that I felt like a breakthrough was made, then something would be said and I felt deflated again. I think in order for teachers to truly understand the power of the learning networks, the blogs, the wikis, RSS, they have to be totally immersed in it. It wasn’t until I started following blogs, joining wikispaces, writing on my blog and subscribing to feeds to manage it all that I felt the connections of all the people who are working so passionately to change the face of how we view and use technology in education. It isn’t until you are digging, following links, using del.icio.us and stumble upon the same names, faces, links together over and over again that you understand how the pieces all fit together.

Hi Sara
I would like to jump in here – I am a “newbie”- I attended Will’s presentation today in NYC. I am a retired teacher who was just brought in on a 2D Federal Grant to bring my environmental education expertise and passion into the world of technology. My eyes were opened today as the possibilities of this tool. Reading these comments from Will’s post has made feel welcome to say hello and seek your guidance and experience. It is really amazing how I was just thinking about writing about the reunion with my first girlfriend from 50 years ago. Going back to 12 was a trip. I am motivated to write – which is not my style.
Where would you suggest I blog it to? Who would be receptive to reading it?
I also think that the SEED program I am developinghttp://www.savingeartheveryday.com has tremendous potential to develop conversations globally and effectively use technology for the purpose I believe I got from todays presentation – to help the world be a better place –
SEED works with parents and businesses to help them grow. Allowing parents to enter the conversation opens the door to demonstrating to the teachers and staff how technology can be used. Understanding all the issues with getting school and systems support for this perhaps coming in with parents could be a way to enter through the back door
I would love any feedback SEED and perhaps where do I go next to continue my journey into the 21st century of education. I would love to be guided.
Thanks Will for opening me up to the real world of Technology.

Hi Barry–Welcome! I checked out the SEED program…what a great thing you are doing! We have a global awareness committee here at our high school and I have forwarded that site along to the kids in charge. I think in regards to how to get started blogging…gosh…I’m a newbie there…but I would check out edublogs, I’ve been happy with that site…but more importantly, try out Google Reader and find blogs from other blogs and read, read, read. It will inspire you to write in many different ways. Just last night I was reading some new blogs…from blog rolls from other blogs I read and got some great ideas! As far as your audience goes…a really good friend told me when I was having trouble getting started…just write for you and your audience will find you…and so I did. My blog is for me…my soapbox, my reflection pool…and if others happen to enjoy reading it and interacting with me, that would be wonderful!

Thanks for the response Sara
It is great to get your feedback and suggestions for getting started and moving forward
Thanks again
Please feel free to have your students email me if they have any suggestions or comments.

Bravo Sara! I couldn’t of said it any better myself! I too just attended MACUL, but I was only “allowed” to attend one day, and I had to take a “personal day” to do that! I applaud you Sara for getting “newbies” involved, don’t get discouraged, at least you are making the effort! My frustration lies in the fact that K-12 school budgets have become increasingly “tighter” in Michigan, and just when we supposedly are on a mission to truly improve schools & prepare students for the “21st Century” the state has turned to standardized testing as the answer- get real! I just spent three days proctoring the required ACT/MME Tests, & I got exhausted just watching the life being drained out of my best students! We have got to convince the “powers to be” that giving MORE STANDARDIZED TESTS DOES NOT PREPARE KIDS FOR THEIR FUTURE! Having kids take over 13 hours of standardized tests is preparing them for their future? How? We need MORE FUNDING for technology,MORE FUNDING FOR REAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, not less, especially because that is the world that our kids already inhabit & live in every day! If the “educational establishment” doesn’t wise up fast we could “lose” a whole generation of bright minds!

Sara, You just so clearly described my place in this new technology “frontier.” Since my tech class last fall I can’t believe how much I’ve learned from blogs, wikispaces and the networking of so many people. It does seem like the computer is the only place to have these conversations though. After 38 years in the classroom, I’m retiring this June. I am now going to work toward an endorsement for an tech integration specialist as they are called here in Vermont and hopefully I will find a part-time position. The classroom responsibilities have grown so demanding with NCLB that there’s very little time for teachers to join in meaningful conversations around their ownn learning. The need to bridge the gap exists everywhere and bringing tech skills to our students is so vital to their success in today’s world. I agree with the others that teachers need to be using these skills in order to bring them to their students. This morning I just connected with your comments about your journey into this new world.

I have to agree with Chris. Folks like Jane Goodall and JM Cousteau have a bit of a different skill-set than most of us. It’s one that I’d like to learn more about. If we would reach out to them, maybe they’d be interesting in hearing about our skill-set.

Then we trade knowledge – since that’s what we (and they) are all about.

If you are interested in someone who’s walking both walks and talking both talks (bio/natural world and tech) take a look at http://www.wildernessclassroom.com . I just blogged about it recently. What a guy (Dave Freeman) and what an organization!

Hi Will,
I blogged about something similar earlier today. This week I am having a conversation with curriculum leaders in my district regarding 21st century skills for students, and I have to start the conversation by explaining what that means. Conversations involving these skills has been around for several years now, yet those who lead districts do not seem to be knowledgeable about the tools available today to help prepare students for the lifetime in front of them. What I find most surprising is that so many are content to teach the way they were taught. With the wealth of information and the collaborative nature of the networks that exist, and we participate in, I can’t understand why many chose not to participate in communities for their own professional/personal growth. There is a big disconnect and I wish I had an answer as to how to begin to bridge it.

Unfortunately, everything dealing with school reform seems that it has to be measured. Until schools administrators and teachers see the benefits of changing their practice and realize they have a different kind of learner in their classroom, I fear that things won’t change. I am extremely frustrated with how slow 21st century teaching skills are reaching pre-service and classroom teachers. Unless teachers and administrators attend a conference or get involved in online sessions, there is little hope of getting the skills in to the classroom. One of the problems I see is the separation of technology and teaching. I also think there are few who are teaching the teachers and updating their teaching methods. Even when teachers are exposed to new skills, it takes significant time to adopt them. I commend teachers that are excited about learning new tools to use in their classroom, but often they get stuck working on projects that are just other ways to do what they do now and not reflect a change in their practice. If this trend continues, we have little hope of our schools meeting the standards of today’s learners. I know I am impatient and that the wheels of education reform are slow to turn, but I agree that there is an urgency to educate our teachers for the 21st century now!

I totally agree about the separation of technology and teaching. Although I have been in ed tech for awhile, I am still pretty new with blogging and just started using Twitter. When I began to read on the web, I had no problem finding names in technology to read but I cannot find some of the big names in curriculum. Why is that? Why does curriculum and pedagogy not blend naturally with technology tools? It reminds me of watching a presentation by Ted Hasselbring (father of Read 180 from Scholastic). I was excited about hearing him speak but quickly became frustrated and even angry about his lack of understanding about 21st century skills and technology. His presentation had videos and images from the 1980s but nothing recent. What a shame.

I could not agree more! With any little “new” thing brought to teachers, I feel like they are looking at me like….”OH NO! Not ANOTHER thing we have to do!!!” It has been a challenge to demonstrate that it is not really ANOTHER thing to do, but a DIFFERENT way of looking at things. Plus, add on all of the stresses they feel about student achievement and NCLB, and they become even more wary to stray from what is familiar, comfortable, etc.

Every now and then, I also like to take a look at some of the courses that undergraduate institutions are offering their preservice teachers. I do find the stereotype, that it is generally the “older” generation of teachers that are hesitant to incorporate all of these 21st century skills into their own lives and into the lives of their students, is not generally true. There are many young, fresh, new teachers who grew up with these technologies and still have never heard of them, or know how to use them in an educational context.

I think that, if you want to make a shift towards 21st century classrooms, you need to begin with training 21st century teachers. As they become more comfortable with these skills, they will then embrace them into their classroom and teaching.

Yes, Kristin, just as the Apple Buy program made it possible for me to purchase my first computer back in the 1980s as a single mother of two on a teacher’s salary, I now find that even though my hardware stays up to date, my ability to make use of newer networking skills doesn’t.

And it’s not for lack of desire or foresight. When I cared enough to make buying a computer a priority for my tightly-budgeted household, there still wasn’t enough time to learn the programs to make it useful for me.

There is so much happening right now that someone not working full time in education struggles to keep up. And those who ARE working full time are too buy to keep up!

I think it’s the attitude we should be teaching and not necessarily the particular skills or software programs, since those change regularly and rapidly. But of course the possibilities for application must be made readily available also.

Hey Bill,
I sat next to you during the Meier-Ravitch workshop and was intrigued by your blog. The system will always attempt to keep people who are doing radical (right) things back. We all just need to keep doing the work that is defined by our beliefs, get results and they can’t help but notice us. We have to bring them along. Keep fighting the good fight. A system is never changed by the top down.
The beauty of these type of conferences is the “open space”. I just happen to be sitting next to you at a workshop and now I will be a full time follower of your blog. Hopefully down the road we can figure how to collaborate.

As someone who is trying very hard to bridge academia with the ‘Web 2.0′ world (for want of a better phrase), it’s extremely difficult. Chris Craft is dead on – there’s little to no interest by most academics in these paradigm shifts. It’s fear, it’s snobbery, it’s whatever, but it leads to academics viewing this stuff as ‘experimental,’ not worldchanging. Professors often are hesitant to believe that folks without doctorates as credentials have much to add. Sad but true.

I wish I could get my academic colleagues to read ‘Everything is Miscellaneous.’ More than The World Is Flat or Wikinomics or any other book I know, Weinberger’s text really illustrates the shifting nature of KNOWLEDGE and INFORMATION and EXPERTISE and PARTICIPATION, which of course are what K-12 and postsecondary education are all about. A shorter path to some of those discussions is the Information R/evolution video by Michael Wesch.

We’ve got a long way to go in higher ed (e.g., tenure requirements, views on what is worthy when it comes to publication, distance learning). In some ways much further than K-12. All I (we) can do is keep plugging…

@Scott
I look forward to looking up “Everything is Micellaneous” Thanks for sharing. The best way to start change within a school is to sell it to the building principal. The success or failure of many initiatives ends with how hard the administrator pushes it.

@Will
Thanks for commenting on other blogs. As someone new to all of this within the first couple of months noting is more encouraging than receiving a comment, e-mail, or new dot on a cluster map.

Yes! This is one of my biggest gripes as an educator! Giving kids laptops, throwing money into computer labs and software, talking incessantly about providing students with the technological skills they need to succeed in the 21st century — these are all good things, but they are utterly pointless if undertaken by educators who are not themselves well-versed in technology. Yet finding the time and money to educate the educators, to let them know what kind of technological tools are out there and how they can use them, is a big challenge for most schools, mine included.

As I heard from our state media program liaison at the South Carolina State Dept of Education (Martha Alewine) say before, we must stop preaching to each other and start trying to reach the crowds who are not sold on our beliefs. Of course she was referencing library media specialists presenting wonderful programs (like tech integration, information literacy, innovative library media programs, collaboration)but I took her message to heart. Each year I strive to present at our state k12 administrator’s annual conference, and I say they are HUNGRY for the knowledge. MAybe we should spread out even more, and begin hitting the post high school conference circuits.

GREAT post Will. I had a feeling this was coming by the tweet yesterday regarding the (superintendents, etc.) presenters reading their bullet points aplenty.

I’ve been ranting about the importance of the web to education and learning for years. I think it’s a combination of people not wanting to explore something they don’t (yet) feel skilled in. (Academics are often very competitive and want to be the one who knows more.) And people not realizing that these radically new tools are often free and easy, so they can’t envision how they would use them or get their students to use them. Here’s a recent rant –http://joanvinallcox.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/educating-for-the-21st-century/

@Cathy Nelson, I totally agree with you, we’ve got to start pulling in the uninitiated. This summer I have the opportunity to give a 5 hour hands on pro-d session on blogging to my school district colleagues. I’m trying to emphasize that this session’s goal is to help teachers set up their own Personal Learning Networks, it’s not about getting students to blog. Teachers have to immerse themselves in this technology and really understand it before they can effectively teach these skills to students.

@Will, thanks for starting this great discussion, it clearly resonates with educators!

Educating the teachers/staff about 21st Century practices should be obvious. The students already know how to use the technology (maybe not in an educational setting), but many teachers know nothing about blogs, wikis, microblogs, etc. I don’t think it should be looked at as, “Oh no. Not another thing we have to do.” but instead, it should allow lightbulbs to go off above teachers’ heads. Something like an “ah ha!” moment. I agree that it should start by sharing these tools with the tech-staff (computer teachers, network admins, etc), followed by the building principals. That said, if even ONE classroom demonstrates higher-level thinking/learning by using technology even when it’s not “required”, hopefully others will jump onboard.
Great post, Will. Thanks!

I agree with you, of course, that it shouldn’t be looked at askance, or as a burden, but the hard fact is — that’s how many teachers see it. Competing for their actual attention and investment is where the really difficult work lies. In my building, many and varied presentations have been given about even the simplest online tools (databases, search engines) and still I hear “oh, we have a database for health info? I’ve never known that” Now, a scintillating presenter I may not be — but when that person has been witnessed by me to be present on no less than 3 occasions when the health info database was a. introduced b. presented in a “hands on” mini-workshop c. referenced and demo’d in a collaborative lesson example — I have to conclude that some how — she wasn’t paying attention. It’s hard for me to admit that there are lots of people out there — often smart and good people — who just aren’t the least bit interested in any of this “technology/constructivist hoopla” So, sign me up for the snob list, too, I guess. Thanks for the thinking

As you may see from the dent in my forehead I am in complete support of your frustration. Being a ‘young’ administrator for the past 10 years and continuously trying to bring mandated initiatives in line with technological possibilities is completely aggrevating. We can’t get meetings hooked up with wireless internet, are beaten down by paper,and web 2.0 tools are an evil which only threaten the safety of students. Somehow with small grassroots efforts, this networked community, your perseverance and my own beginning blogging efforts which maybe someone will read~ our students, schools and communities will move forward. Someone once told me that you need to walk the land before you plow the field. I only hope that we don’t get our boots mired in the mud while we are planting those veggies!

Your post reflects a number of my frustrations. Teachers that I work with are so pressured by accountability testing that they don’t even want to know that a 21st century reform movement exists ( and most don’t). They feel so overwhelmed by expectations placed upon them that having to learn about technology is one thing too many; or they add one piece of technology expertise to their repetoire and are satisfied that they are teaching technology. Our school performs at the top of the state testing so the thinking is that we must be doing everything right-why change? And the teachers do work very hard to provide engaging experiences-just not ones that are based upon 21st century skills. As a tech facilitator I offer workshops, team teach, bring in vendors, sign us up for webinars, and minimal numbers participate.
I think that it is necessary to inform school boards and administrators about the 21st century dialog. I started a blog about a month ago and everytime I post I send an email to my staff asking them to read it and comment. So far there have been only a couple come to the blog and comment.Most don’t read it. This past week my administrator forwarded the URL for my blog to our board of directors and interestingly one member emailed-and wondered why we aren’t talking about some of this at school. Maybe there is hope?
BTW- As a new blogger I would love to get the discussion going at http://onboard.edublogs.org
Thanks for your leadership, Will.

I believe another KEY part of this is at the university level. For all our talk about the generation coming up that is supposedly so connected … I don’t see it from new teachers coming out of college. I don’t know if it is a teacher thing or what … but new teachers right out of the university … ask them how much technology integration they were required to do. Were they required to have a computer in college? The teachers we get right out of college tell us that they are REQUIRED to have technology as part of every lesson they do! GREAT YOU SAY … but ask what that means … the programs tend to count a VCR, an overhead projector A FILMSTRIP, watching part of a TV show, listening to music or something else from a cassette tape deck or CD player as technology integration. And Guess what?! That tends to be what they use because that’s what schools still tend to have available.

We have college professors that are some of the most connected people we know in our network. But is that the norm? NO, don’t even get me started. When we got a grant last year for technology at our school it came with the usual connection to the university … they did a required paid for study of how well we integrated the technology we received from the grant and what difference it made in student learning … what a joke. The Ed profs knew very little … didn’t know or had never heard of blogs, wikis, Flickr, you name it. Email was cutting edge with them … we had to explain every aspect of what and why we were using technology and they just wrote that down and made it their report because it was all out of their realm of understanding.

If new teachers coming out of college aren’t up on this we are sad shape … so I guess we are in sad shape! Please don’t tell me about this college professor or that one that is doing this … I’m talking about the vast majority of college Ed profs … what is their level of comfort and expertise with ed tech … I’m afraid you won’t like the answer.

So, how do we change that so AT LEAST we start to have new teachers coming into the profession that have a clue. Otherwise I think we are spitting in the wind.
End of rant comment on your rant post. : )

It’s my beef with my masters program in educational leadership at Lewis University. Their goal is to produce education leaders, and yet nothing about technology. ZERO. The elective is a sad sad course of basic web deisgn and office.

You’re right on with that one Brian. I am a pre-service teacher at a university in Michigan. We pride ourselves in being a “laptop university” yet most professors won’t allow students to bring their laptops to class (too much IMing apparently). Beyond that, we have one 2 credit (meaning 1.5 hours, once per week, for one semester) Technology course for teachers. Interestingly, once students finish the course they are not much better off than they were before. In fact, the “websites” that these students design are saved to a CD or DVD and turned in to the professor which in turn means that these students don’t actually learn how to publish their websites. It is sad, but true. Hopefully more universities will get with the program and start teaching their future teachers how to use technology. That’s not to say that we don’t have professor who do this, but they are too far and few between.

Well said, Will. As a native NYer, I’d been following the development of the “Celebration” conference from its early days and knew it was getting out of control. I never quite understood what it was trying to accomplish. One of the “featured speakers” is a former colleague of mine who is putting out a new textbook on teaching and learning in the 21st Century. I had to teach her what a wiki was, less than 6 months ago.

I second everything that Scott McLeod wrote, and I think the divide Chris Craft writes about is best exemplified my a decision Scott made this year. Given a limited travel budget (and time to travel), Scott had to choose between AERA (the largest ed. research conference in the country) and NECC (the largest ed. tech. conference in the country). He’s goint to NECC; he’ll be one of maybe a handful of professors there (and surely the only ed. leadership professor). It would be interesting to poll the attendees of those two conferences to see how many have actually ever even heard of the other conference.

@BrianCrosby We offer to be a supervising teacher for the universities and model treu tech integration and absolutely WOW the socks of our preservice interns. It’s what I have done with ALL my interning teacher librarians, the vast majority of which are practicing classroom teachers who are/were currently enrolled in graduate level classes. We must model, model, model for ALL (from preschoolers to superintendents to our connections back to the university through internships.)

[...] the intriguing conversations happening on Scott McLeod’s (68 comments as of this writing) and Will Richardson’s (30 comments as of this writing) blogs.&nbsp; Lengthy reads but definitely worth [...]

Interesting focus on twenty first century skills, by which you must also mean Web 2.0 pedagogy? I’m hearing a lot about this term in Warschauer’s Laptops & Literacy (2006) and the new book on Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools by Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum. A one-day hybrid event live in Second Life will examine some aspects of Web 2.0 pedagogy and twenty first century skills for students and faculty. More information available at: http://wirelessready.nucba.ac.jp or register for the Second Life event at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/EduNation%20III/52/49/21/

Wow- you did strike a nerve- @LParisi and I worked together on a wiki north/south hemispheres collaboration and won a Chase award at the Celebration of Learning and Teaching Conference last weekend. She was disappointed that only one of the collaborators was permitted to go on stage to receive the award- missing the point of global collaboration at that point!

It is frustrating when you want to find out more about what people think and they have no on-line presence. Are they frightened that no-one will ask them to speak at a conference and so they will sink into obscurity if they ‘give away’ to much of themselves on line. Speaking at conferences is how some people earn a living and I wonder if they are trying to hold onto their ideas so people have to pay to read or hear what they have to say.

Will,
Keep the faith. I train teachers in the NYCDoE to use technology in the classroom. I’m on the front lines. When I give my workshops or push into classrooms, I’m always questioning myself about whether the teachers will take what I can give (blogging, wikis, rss, interactive whiteboards, stuff) back into their classrooms and use them with their kids to impact learning. I know some do; most I’m sure don’t. When I think about the huge number of teachers in the DoE (95,000), it’s really easy to lose heart. Sometimes it feels like the guy pushing the rock up the slippery slope.

But then one of my participants comes up to me at the DoE booth at the Celebration for Teaching and Learning and shakes my hand. She wants to thank me because something I taught her helped her reach her kids. She “got it”.

As a new blogger of less than a year, it is difficult to break into the conversation. I am ever appreciative of those in the edubloggerworld that reach out to respond to my fledgling voice. Everyone is stressed for time and that is understood – but does come across as closed sometimes.

My principal is on board with change but does not do these things himself. I am hoping to show him in my yearly review how I have grown professionally by blogging and following those in education who walk the walk. I have learned more in the last year than I have in the last 20 years of teaching.

Only through a new model of professional development will more teachers realize the conversations out there and start to absorb and consequently change. I am in a district that received a lot of money in a state grant (classrooms for the future). Mandates are top down and very few are really looking at it with the correct type of lens that questions our pedagogy to enact some real change.

Many great comments here. Continue what you are doing Will. Each person in this world has an opportunity to reach out and increase their circle and create ripples of change.

Will goes off on an outstanding rant that originated in what he saw at an education conference this past weekend sponsored by New York’s public television station.
However, his concerns have little to do with what the speakers had to say in their…

Seth Godin, master marketer, talks about how publicity / marketing has to change given the nature of the Internet. If you want to be noticed, give away as much as you can. Keep churning out information, resources, etc. – all free – and people will find you. In droves. And guess what? They’ll STILL want you to come in person. In other words, just like when you write a fantastic book or a great article or make an amazing movie, people still want to hear from you live. And that’s where you make your money…

Personally, I have found this true. I am NOT in the business of making money presenting/speaking. I’m just a professor trying to help kickstart schools – particularly school leaders – into the 21st century. But by giving away everything that my center, CASTLE, and I create, visibility has skyrocketed and I have way more invitations to come work with people than I can possibly handle. I’m guessing that if you asked Will, David Warlick, Wesley Fryer, Gary Stager, etc., they’d tell you the same thing.

This is the new paradigm. It’s about how to get noticed when there is an OCEAN of information out there. When there’s a nearly-infinite number of people and organizations out there, all trying to get your attention, how does one get noticed? THAT’s a skill that we should be teaching our children. Of course, because most of us don’t understand it (just like the presenters you describe), we’re not.

I highly encourage you to read Godin’s new book, Meatball Sundae. He outlines all of this very clearly. Then think about how to help our students understand this so they can be successful in this new information landscape.

Wow. Finally someone outside of education says what I have been saying for a while. Teach the teachers first. Most of my fellow teachers here at my middle school shiver when you say blog or wiki and the other do not recognize their value. Admittedly, I am still a blog infant (I have three and need to condense). But their value is apparent. Until teachers, especially short-timers, see these tools as valuable, and frankly, easy to use, not much will change. Teachers need to visit virtual worlds, social networks and web 2.0 tools and get a sense of what the kids are doing. Then maybe we can talk to them about using those thing. Money, administrators and the bored (not a typo) of education will always get in the way.

[...] you, Will Richardson, for finally putting this out there! URGENT: 21st Century Skills for Educators (and Others) First Which leads to the second question which is how in god’s name can we talk seriously about 21st [...]

Your blog is always preaching to the choir and I love everything you have to say- I really enjoy the environmentalism thrown in often as well.

I am afraid it is beyond teaching the teachers though- it starts with the administration. I live in Gwinnett County GA and currently they have a “ban” on blogging in the schools. We have tried to educate the powers that be and given them links to your blog as well as others who eloquently explain the power of the tools but to say our higher-ups are closed-minded would be an understatement. While I know some teachers willing to try to innovate- there is little support from administration and this is the brick wall we are facing now. Not to say we are giving up- but sometimes I just feel sad when I read what other educators are able to do knowing that even motivated teachers have the extra challenge of convincing administration here.

Will, I respect you a great deal and you were one of the first bloggers I that I started regularly reading. This post however, I disagree with.

Will writes:

Which leads to the second question which is how in god’s name can we talk seriously about 21st Century skills for kids if we’re not talking 21st Century skills for educators first? The more I listened, the less I heard in terms of how we make the teaching profession as a whole even capable of teaching these “skills” to kids. Sure, there were mentions of upgrading teacher preparation programs and giving teachers additional time in the school day to collaborate, etc. But the URGENCY was all around the kids. Shouldn’t the URGENCY be all about the teachers right now?

My answer in short, is no.

Coordinating, providing, and teaching staff development for teachers is a big part of my job. Providing this training in the area of instructional technology has been a big piece of that as well. I have gone through a serious paradigm shift with this as the longer readers of my blog (http://plethoratech.blogspot.com) will see. (See posts Everything You Know Is Wrong, Staff Development is About Good Research Questions, Learn Like Our Students Day, 21st Century Learning Skills) I have come to realize that:
1. Teachers as a whole will never be as “techie” as the kids.
2. Kids are not as “techie” as the media, pundits, or teachers think they are.
3. 21st century learning skills are misnomer. The skills are the same they have been in the late 20th century; the tools available just keep changing.

The urgency in my opinion is the same “urgency” that academics, teaching universities, and staff developers have been claiming as urgent for decades: inquiry, critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration.

The names may change but the concept is the same: cooperative learning, differentiated instruction, higher order thinking, Bloom’s taxonomy. It isn’t so much about the content and certainly not about the tools. It is about the level of inquiry that students are exposed to to get them to move from no knowledge to naive knowledge on the road to sophisticated knowledge.

So Mr. Richardson, while I respect your point of view, I humbly disagree. The urgency is the same as it has been for teachers and students and all learners alike: to engage in serious inquiry to move towards understanding….regardless of what tools are used.

(and as an aside to your other comment at the end of your post….I think that if you want ideas to “resonate and to be taken seriously”, it is not just about publishing. Or speaking about it. It is getting into schools and classrooms (and staying there for a while….5 or 6 years at a minimum) to make the sustaining changes that are needed.) It is easy to blog or speak about it. It is hard to go to schools each day and try to change that which is so resistant to such changes from the inside.

Amazing how things change and yet stay the same. Your last paragraph speaks volumes to me. If you cannot change it from the inside, how much affect will outside influences have? And those outside influences have to be constant, not just a single staff development or a single conference.

Barry makes some good points, but my thinking aligns more with Will’s than Barry’s…and faculty development is my job too. I agree with Chris that our focus should not be the web tools but rather the application of those tools towards critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration. Will’s comments reflect several postings
recently on increasing awareness in faculty of the potential with Web 2.0 tools away from teacher-centered “professing” and towards student-centered creation and collaboration. See Steve Hargadon’s “Web
2.0 Is the Future” for instance. Until administrators “get it,” the focus for teachers will be on NCLB style testing. The democratic nature of the web is a paradigm shift and Will’s sense of urgency is warranted.

But oh, but the thing about the bovine, cattle, they are able to convert worthless vegetation into food (meat and milk). This was the amazing thing about their introduction to this country. Of course we have overdone it like everything else, but that was the origin of that amazing ruminant stomach, converting low grade forage into usable food! So I am not ready to throw it out, yet!

Challenged with the responsibility of moving a system along the continuum of adoption, I have spent some time giving presentations to pre-service and practicing teachers regarding the seamless use of technology as a tool for learning. Web 2.0 literacies are a part of that tool kit, and I have found a few pockets of interest, less sustainability and general dis-interest in learning something new. This from teachers who may use audio and video applications, simulations, or whatever technology they have internalized and are able to incorporate into engaging, authentic and assessible lessons. But holy cow, do they want an interactive white board!!

Very real concerns of Web 2.0 tools are privacy and safety for students and the impact on teachers and administrators if the fortress of learning is breached. I think it is time we moved the discussion forward to the realities of students using Web 2.0 tools, their abilities to sort through the incredible bombardment of web influences and our responsiblities to be knowing guides through these interesting times.

At first when I read your blog I was simply amazed. Upon internalizing your message, I was astounded because your words speak the truth. As a part time college professor and full time eMINTs teacher, it is painful to watch teachers attempting to teach kids using worksheets and textbooks when they have the world at their fingertips.

However, I realize the “old school” teachers in my building are comfortable with teaching in this fashion and change is scary. I would love the opportunity to share my knowledge of social bookmarking, podcasting, blogs, wikis, etc with these teachers, but to them…change is scary. Plus new kick in the district is Marzano teaching strategies and educational technology is non-existant. All teacher training days are limited to this.

So my question is this…how do you advocate for change in an environment that fights it?

It might help if the people chosen to ‘speak’ at conferences were chosen because of their online presence rather than by virtue of their paper-based publishing exploits. Those most effectively leveraging the read/write tools of the web, are the ones with the ability to model engaging uses of evolving tools; but many/most of us are ‘unpublished’ in the traditional sense.

Truth is Will, your work is likely validated by mainstream leaders in education, more for the success of your book, than for anything you contribute to, or inspire from, your network…

[...] Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed News, an all-too-familiar description of an education conference. Money quote: First, am I a snob? Out to lunch? I mean it. I feel like it sometimes when I go to an [...]

I am a fairly new blogger – saw you at Christa McAuliffe in New Hampshire this past fall and had my blog up and running within a week – but I look at discussions about teacher leadership in the area of technology not as “should’s”but as “ought’s”. In other words, we “ought” to use read-write technologies in our classrooms as opposed to we “should” use read-write technologies in our classrooms.

To me, the word “ought” suggests we have a moral obligation as an educative community to prepare our students for a world where web 2.0 (and beyond) are commonplace. In other words, we know what the right thing to do is and – we “ought” to do it. The problem, of course, is that the right thing is not necessarily the easy thing. None the less, as educators we must recognize that we are preparing our students for tomorrow, not yesterday or even today. If we are to bring honor to our duty to educate, we must do so using collaborative, problem-based experiences that utilize the read-write literacy of today’s student.

I saw Chris Dede Ed.d. speak at the New England regional ASCD conference in December. There he said the following, “Face to face teaching is equivalent to professional malpractice.” I do think there is quality face to face teaching happening all the time, but we have a duty, a moral obligation to include collaborative and virtual projects in our itinerary.

[...] Will Richardson’s post (rant) on 21st century skills and getting educators onboard has drawn copious comments. He is so right in describing the conference venue as frighteningly dull and disconnected. The sheer commercial nature of how conferences happen is study in slime. Exhibit halls are filled with the latest buzz-word wrappers on the same old products, and EVERYONE is “for sale.” The conference organizers, logistics companies, and convention center management each take a cut of the commercial pie, and Internet access is just another costly “add-on” in Edu-make-a-buck Land. Been there, done that. As an exhibitor from a non-profit, I have enjoyed marvelous reactions (”Wow, you’re like Robin Hood!”)…but that is another post. [...]

After reading Will’s post (very, very thought provoking), I read through the comments – carefully at first, but then, due to sheer quantity – jut skimmed through many,, as I still have a lengthy “to do” list for work. I do want to offer a brief, and perhaps somewhat simplistic reaction from “the trenches” – a public school principal’s view. I absolutely understand the frustration – have faced it in my own district – though we are now doing some things to move forward. However, when I think about education reform – and the ‘big names’ in the education reform and research community – I also sense their frustration. We are still doing things in education that we have known for decades are not effective. We have yet to get solid, efective ‘non-tech’ instruction down in large scale and pervasive ways. And many of our kids are losing out because of it! The most troubling thing to me is that, not only are kids not being educated for the 21st century by teachers who use 21st century skills, but many, many kids are not being educated by people who believe they can learn; and many kids are not learning what they need to be successful at all. I believe part of the reason (although I do not disagree about the reluctance of some elite researchers to even consider dabbling in this world)we do not see some of these people even looking at 21st century skills, tools, etc – they have not been able to make a dent in large-scale reform to make any instruction effective in the most fundamental way. Lots and lots of thoughts . . . . not enough time to craft an eloquent or even articulate response! Keep posting, Will – it does keep me thinking!!

Great post, Will. Your observations at this conference speak volumes to the participants and presenters.

Let’s not, however, forget conference organizers or even conference venues themselves. A colleague of mine is at a major educational conference right now hosted by an organization which has, as its mantra, “Advancing K-12 Educational Leadership”, and all wireless communications within the floors of the conference are purposely blocked. Right there, the ability to live blog, to publish to a session wiki (a la David Warwick), to access the presentation or links referenced therein, to communicate, reflect, and collaborate with conference participants formally or informally – are all gone with the push of the wireless blocker button.

With administrators or teachers, it’s a personal influence that, I think, makes the difference in whether one is involved with Web 2.0 tools. As a teacher, I was excited by other teachers to try new things who could explain how it worked in their own classroom and could show me. As an administrator, I’m encouraged by other administrators I admire (Greg Farr) who tell me about new tools, new books, and blogs I should (ought) to read. I’m not sure if a whole-group workshop or conference could inspire in me the confidence to actually try something new simply based on a theory. It’s the people I admire and care about who convince me that I will be supported along my path, whether I fail or not. It’s a catch 22 that those of us who blog receive the support we need to continue blogging, but those who don’t blog need support to start. It is, afterall, about individualized instruction.

I’ve followed your blog for several months, and I have to thank you for all you do with these posts. This one, in particular, makes me feel that I’m doing the right thing with my dissertation and teaching. I use blogs in my classroom and maintain two of my own blogs (not counting the blog that guides the class discussions).

I’m in a doctoral program that emphasizes technology and encourages us to use it in the classroom, but there is no support for teaching the teachers to use this technology. I am the “guru” everybody has turned to for advice and have started monthly workshops to help my fellow GTAs out. There are times that I think that I’m not benefiting this group because what I’m teaching them is the basics (Blackboard, blogging, wikis, etc.). But when I read this, you made me realize exactly how much these basic workshops will benefit them in the long run.

I think you need to get a bigger focus on this – it’s not who’s with-it and who’s not. It is much more about things that have always been with us. It is about educational experts of many kinds who couldn’t model good teaching if they offered Nobel-sized prizes for it (or even required to do it to keep their jobs). The “cred” for me is about educational leaders who can deliver a talk in any form they choose, with any digital tool they want, that makes me see new connections or learn something or be inspired. There are so many forms of “cred” lacking in my world, I can’t elaborated or I will depress myself too much. And I love it when my elementary students say, “Oh no, a powerpoint!” and they don’t even know Tufte….

When I first read through this post, my first thought was “see, now you know how so many of us feel when we go to work every morning (on our campuses and districts where we are the only ones “connected” to this online network)”…

As I read through the comments, my thoughts became much more complex. While I still feel strongly that a large part of our problem stems from the fact that so many academics and school reform “gurus” are so unaware of how Web 2.0 and technology can be so transformative, I also think that we have some responsibility to bridge the gap ourselves as well. How good are we at speaking THEIR language and putting our message in their terms?

In a few weeks David Warlick will be presenting here in my neck o’ the woods to a group of educational leaders and business leaders. I truly hope that his message sinks in with this group of leaders in my community.

On another related note — I sent out a ‘tweet’ along these lines a couple of months ago when I realized that in my very large, inner-city school district not a single employee in the instructional technology department is involved at all in the edublogging community. Some of them will give lip service to the concepts of using podcasts in foreign language classes, but they have no clue how blogs, wikis, and podcasts (not to mention all of the other newer tools that exist) can be used to transform student AND teacher learning. Yes — I would say that in my opinion they have no “cred” as you phrased it. It made me feel angry and frustrated all at once. I sent out the ‘tweet’ to my network — my network of like-minded educators who understand these things — because I felt so much frustration and so little hope that there will be any substantial change in my district and I just needed to vent to my network so I wouldn’t feel so very alone.

So many of us feel what you felt at this conference. We feel it everyday when we go to our campuses or our district offices — that sense of being either completely alone or wondering if we are completely insane because we now see the world through an entirely different lens and we can not — will not — go back to the old lens.

Thank you for this post. Though it reminds me (yet again) that I am two steps (or more) behind; I feel the urgency to catch up– to publish, to post, to podcast, to twitter and screencast– I finished reading your book today and have been flummoxed for weeks about blogging and podcasting. I do both personally, but not professionally (meaning neither well nor about professional issues much, yet). I’m learning and I’m teaching others as I learn, but I’m finding, as Stephanie mentioned, that there is a dearth of Web 2.0 practice in many schools. It’s a tremendous challenge to spread the word while walking the talk and a challenge about which I feel great URGENCY. My teachers or my “concrete” network think I’m twenty steps ahead, when really, I’m behind.

Will, your part here about tech conferences really hit a nerve with me. Your experience was spot on with what I just experienced at a regional conference. Except there was one bright spot – this pretty engaging guy named Wesley…

It’s time to totally rethink tech PD. Cap the classes, cancel the conferences. They are not even close to getting it done and are wasting incredible time and resources. Am working on a way to say this… – Mark

[...] up to move in new directions with this blog. In the spirit of recent postings by Will Richardson URGENT: 21st Century Skills for Educators (and Others) First and ISB colleague Dennis Harter Is school curriculum still meaningful? I’m going to [...]

I understand and agree with what you are saying. I feel your frustration with the slow pace of change. I have to remind myself all the time that change is slow to come.

Adoption is slow for technologies that can’t be easily tested, and those innovations that don’t give immediate results (and I think many web 2.0 tools don’t), often take years to diffuse. Furthermore, evangelists like you, me and many that have commented above are often seen as a threat and resisted.

The question that I have is how do we overcome this resistance? How do we act as change agents to increase the rate of adoption? How do we scale or efforts?

—
Also, as a newer entrant into this world (web2.0, etc.)… sometimes I have felt like an “outsider.” Although I have engaged in giving several presentations (K-12 Online Conference, Learning 2.0: Colorado Conversation), I feel like I am outside “the group.” I am just speaking from my gut here… I don’t know what this is… Could it be that there is a tension between “academia” and the grass roots efforts of the Web 2.0 movement? Your thoughts?

Hey James,
Thanks for the comment. I too worry that we get a bit cliquish in all of this. And there is unquestionably a anti-intellectual streak in many of the conversations. As more people (like you) come into these conversations, however, I hope we can get more diverse voices into the mix. It’s hugely important.

I’m in the world of corporate/organizational training and learning. Much of what you say applies there as well. (Roger Schank said once that it took the teaching profession 30 years to move the overhead projector out of the bowling alley.)

I do think that early adopters can overlook how daunting technology seems from the outside, especially for people who don’t enjoy playing with tech for the sake of playing. F’rinstance, I’ve seen musings that blogs are so passé, which I can’t help translating as “I’m bored with mine.”

It might help to imagine a compulsory switch from your favorite applications (like the old Word vs. WordPerfect religious wars), or your favorite hardware (Mac person being chained to a Dell with Vista).

More pertinently, at least for myself, I now believe that the way I thought I developed professionally wasn’t the full picture. Yes, I’ve benefitted from seminars, workshops, and professional conferences, but far less from sitting-and-soaking during sessions. Rather, most of how I’ve expanded has come from a combination of exposure to new ideas, one-to-one conversations, and my trying to apply or figure out the ideas.

Web 2.0 tools make that easier. Still, I am not crazy about sticking “e-” before every word, or “2.0″ after it, and in talking with colleagues who don’t use blogs or bookmark sites, I find their interest is in what I can do with these things, rather than what they’re called.

Hi Will, thank you for your rant! It always makes me feel better to hear someone else do the ranting for once. I completely agree with your perspective. I teach at a community college and I’m trying very hard to integrate 21st century skills into the context of mainstream discussions of education and instruction. This topic is very marginalized and I believe this type of deep, cultural shift will only occur once our leaders embrace new forms of technology and begin to lead by example.

With 117 in the thread, this is by far the most I’ve ever gotten on one post. Just over the last month, in fact, I’ve been averaging about 25 per post. Not sure what’s happened. Post about it upcoming, though.

Someone mentioned a quote along the lines that “face-to-face teaching is professional malpractice.”

Maybe it is time to define what educational malpractice truly is.

Is teaching the only profession where one is allowed to continue to use outdated tools and strategies – lecture, textbooks, worksheets – that have not been substantiated or validated (as effective instructional methods) by the research?

Have you read “The Neuroscience of Joyful Education?” by Judy Willis, a MS teacher and neurologist. The first chapter is available here http://tinyurl.com/224ugk

We know what best practice is. We know what the brain research is revealing about how kids learn. Let’s use that information to implement instructional methods, and engaged learning strategies that help our kids connect with the material and learn.

My issue is that most of our school districts block blogging web sites (as well as other online technology tools). I raised this issue at a “town hall meeting” regarding the updating of our state content standards. The legislator in charge of the meeting stated it was better to “protect” students than to have they learn collaborative communication tools. Obviously it’s going to be a challenge to teach 21st century technology tools if teachers and students can’t access them.

Will,
It was a pleasure meeting you this summer when you came to speak at our Virginia Beach City Public Schools summer computer resource conferences. To be honest… I thought you were a bit snobby and a bit out to lunch. I sensed your frustration with the state of education, but I share that with you. From that common frustration and your unknown guidance, I have started using twitter to collaborate and share with other teachers, set up a school blog that has become quite active, created a wiki for my Hampton Roads modsim group, created a portaportal with “cool tech tools” for my computer club, set up an igoogle page and actually monitor my rss feeds, and last week started saving my favorites on del.ic.ious!!! I’m so proud of myself. I’m just one elementary school teacher… think of all the others you, and others like you, have influenced. You didn’t know about me and you don’t know about the others. Please don’t give up, please keep on being snobby and way out to lunch- it caught my attention!

So, here’s what I notice. There are about 41 posts here that distinctly affirm your initial post, Will. There are about 7 that disagree in some way with Chris Craft’s comments driving most of them (yes, I actually read them all I didn’t check all of the pingbacks). So, it would seem clear that bloggers have their followers or cheerleaders. The educational research community is very different. Ever stood up to give a research presentation at AERA? Let’s just say, it can be like you the presenter are the dart board and the attendees are the dart throwers, really holding you accountable to your assumptions, research methodologies, data analysis, and conclusions. That does not seem to be happening all that much in the educational blogosphere from what I have seen. Maybe it is because those with that mentality are not participating. For that reason I feel the urgency that they need to be present in these conversations to help bring other perspectives, knowledge and balance out the conversations a little more. So yes, they should be here. But, I concur with Chris Craft. Its a dog-eat-dog world out there in academe. Until higher ed folks and K-12 administration alike see the power and value in this highly connected and conversational world, it ain’t going to change that quickly. You know the saying, “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” Well, not many stones are rolling in higher education.

Steve,
Thanks for the interesting analysis and the important point. Part of this “network literacy” is soliciting opposing points of view, and making sure we’re not just in an echo chamber. Hard to do if those on the “other side” don’t know that they can or even how to participate.

So true. Perhaps we need a blog template that has an “Invitation” button allowing the poster to invite key folks into the discussion – folks who we know but who are not present in the blogosphere. I wonder what would happen… Maybe it would be like inviting your neighbor to church

I agree with Steve that it is helpful to have the other perspectives…but I see a real danger in accepting the lack of rolling stones. Part of being in this disruptive environment is pushing a few of those stones ourselves.

Was I one of the 7 counter perspectives? I was identifying barriers and they are ones I would like to see go away (spent the afternoon getting a Learning Group invited as authors to our college learning blog for example.)

I want conference committees and hotels to get better at support the kinds of tech based presenations we want to see at our conferences . Evals and emails to the conf organizers are in order also.

Peter Senge (Learning Org) basically said we should ask what people need to know to do their jobs well (in this case 21st cent teaching and learning) and how do we make it easy for them to get the skills and knowledge to do so.

Loved to see all the exchanges here — loved the woman who was using Twitter at her school.

@Britt – Well put. These “disruptive technologies” are certainly disrupting many a college classroom. Just follow the “laptops in the lecture hall” disruption going on across campuses nationwide. So many don’t want to adapt to new tools, new ways of knowing, and changing ways of collaborating and problem-solving. But, I think culture and the students are demanding changes. I think many of these issues are the same K-12 as they are in higher ed. – that is lack of leadership, vision, and willingness to connect in meaningful and culturally relevant ways with students. I am all for helping the stones roll and try to model such in the higher ed environment in which I work. However, the prestige is still in those published articles in prestigious peer-reviewed journals. This quest for the “golden standard” is all-consuming. Teaching is often secondary. However, there is also a great need for good research. But, researchers are often put in the role of teaching… not their strength. As Chris Craft wrote, there is a distinct difference of worlds here. So much work to be done at all levels. We really need folks who can bridge these divides.

Let me add a voice and confession from the old world and then perhaps some insight into why there appears to be stagnation.

I’m brand spanking new to this terrace you all have apparently occupied for some time. I had never heard of Will R. until I accidentally stumbled on this sight. Serendipitously, within a week of that accident, I was handed a Canadian Ed. Journal with an article by Will that my mother was thoughtful enough to keep until I showed up at Thanksgiving. I had to look up what Web 2.0 meant. I don’t have a blog and have spent very little time reading any until recently. I just got a gmail address, signed up with igoogle, signed onto twitter (though find it marginally useful at this point) attended a state tech. conference in Oregon two weeks ago, and am slowly teaching myself the significance of what I had no idea existed before Thanksgiving of 2007.

I have been in public ed. for 17 years so I’m not new to the trade. I taught English for 13 years and now am a building administrator. Since Thanksgiving, I have been feeling a little like there has been a big party going on but no one thought to invite me. I know I am not alone. A week after Thanksgiving, I went around to a good portion of my staff, shared the Canadian article and tried to find out who else had gotten the invite… Any guesses? One of our teachers has been active with these tools for a couple of years, one other has a blog. No one else knew what I was talking about but everyone was curious or interested in learning more.

The surprise, the shock, the frustration of most of what I read here is similar to any discussion where the converted can’t understand the skeptics, the unbaptised, the ignorant, or the infidels. It won’t help win many of us over.

I banned cell phones and ipods this year because they were creating a distraction to teachers, the classroom environment, blah, blah. Of course, I’m losing the battle, or will lose. I’m fine with that. I want to lose, I want a teacher to work with me to create a way to use them as a learning tool. If I said that outloud at a staff meeting, the snickering would be thick.

As a building leader, I am intersted in things like student safety, literacy, adhering to SPED law, coaches, parents, forecasting (which I would love to do on a web platform)and, alas, lunch duty. I am deeply interested in how technology can become part of, help with, enhance the whole experience, but we are still a real-time operation, and leadership is stretched beyond its own abundance, knowledge and sometimes effectiveness. We have old machines, limited bandwith, and NO OPEN ACCESS IN THE BUILDING. When we do, we will have to deal with getting past the inevitable abuse and inappropriate use, and learn to live in the new world. Someone said above that knowledge of how the tools will be useful is much more pertinent to teachers than knowledge of the tool itself. This is the bright line, folks, between creating believers, and breeding skeptics. My own skepticism meter is still very high but I am slowly seeing valuable, exciting possibilities to share in the midst of all the rest of what we do. I have yet to encounter a luddite, but that is no assurance that we will generally go slowly, cautiously, and in great need of constructivist guidance.

Well described, Michael, thank you for the confession that puts the pieces in place for me as teacher. I too have recently joined the party, but sometimes it’s like I’m the only one there. It’s difficult to build a network when none of the people you work with or regularly talk professionally with are “networked.”

I’ve been a full-time teacher and part time consultant for many years, but there aren’t many plugged-in teachers at my school. A tech-support person and I offer monthly tech days–just a free period where teachers can come learn and play with Web 2.0 apps, but though we have a staff of over 200 educators, I rarely have more than 10 teachers per class period. Never has an administrator or support person attended. This year we’ve explored Google and feeds, blogs, wikis, Skype, web page creation, delicious, social networking and more.

I would love to work with you and create a way to use cell phones during instruction– what about using them as personal planners (calendars) or to access the web in order to alleviate hardware needs? What about using them to record voice and images to use in multimedia presentations?

This past August I asked David Warlick how he expected teachers to integrate technology and specifically web 2.0 tools when we face zero tolerance electronic policies at the school level. He didn’t really have an answer. He said that in 5 years it would be a mute point. But what about now? That’s what I’m struggling with.

When I posed the same question to my district administrator he replied that cell phones certainly had not been put to good use at our school (students calling/texting each other about a girl resulted in a fight that led to a death). I see his point, but at the same, I’m left wondering and thinking that there are hundreds of uses for cell phones in the classroom that would be a better use of instructional time than lecture.

Thanks for this amazing perspective Michael. It is much appreciated. I think that understanding how the tools can be useful comes from what you are doing right now, investing in the conversations for yourself, engaging in the conversations. We need more of that, and thanks for modeling it.

[...] Will Richardson has done it again…he’s got me thinking and headed for my soapbox. …how in god’s name can we talk seriously about 21st Century skills for kids if we’re not talking 21st Century skills for educators first? The more I listened, the less I heard in terms of how we make the teaching profession as a whole even capable of teaching these “skills” to kids. Sure, there were mentions of upgrading teacher preparation programs and giving teachers additional time in the school day to collaborate, etc. But the URGENCY was all around the kids. Shouldn’t the URGENCY be all about the teachers right now? [...]

Will i have emphatically removed the word “teach” or “teaching” from my vernacular, and replaced it with “learn” and “learner.” It’s just my selfish but subtle way to let all those in the school community know that just b/c you graduated from school, you are not off the hook. Everyday our job is to learn.

[...] because it is always insightful and relevant. Will’s rant this past weekend on “URGENT: 21st Century Skills for Educators (and Others) First” obviously hit some buttons in the blogosphere. Posted March 9th, it now has 96 comments (to [...]

There are so many conversations like this that make me think that perhaps we are talking big ideas in our blogosphere about the changing face of the world and the necessary impact on education, while the actual face of education is in fact changing very little.

By all means, I think we are completely on to something in our discussions, but more and more we need to make it happen and become the “way schools do business” (which I heard you say, Will, in a session in Shanghai). We have some great big ideas here, but implementation is happening one teacher or one librarian or one administrator at a time.

Teacher training is a good start and it needs to become part of Ed programs…Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach just needs to work at more universities (I know that there are more of you out there…just throwing my “props” to W&M).

But while it does need to happen with the teachers to make widespread change, we must not give up on working with students as much as we can even without whole schools buying in. As much of the GenYes (Sylvia are you out there?) program suggests, real school reform can start with the students. If the students are taken further along, then they will demand more of their schools and teachers.

So let’s start steering our conversations from what needs to happen to how we are going to make it happen.

I do also worry that in our insular edu-blogosphere, we only listen to ourselves and perhaps undervalue the contributions and ideas of those without an online voice. Their audience may be limited to their students and their schools, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have the best interests of that audience in mind. And it certainly doesn’t mean that they aren’t good educators.

Having written all of that…I am not anticipating much of a response at comment 100! Still, it’s pretty cool that I get to be that guy!

Hi Dennis,
Yeah, I’m out here – sort of wondering why we keep trying to approach this problem from only one angle. Teaching teachers is important, of course. But let’s face it, that’s where most PD stops. Somehow the tech never trickles down to the classroom. Then we insist that it must be because we didn’t teach the teachers the right way, or enough, or it was their grad program, or the principals, mean IT guys, or some other reason. But hey, maybe if we cajole them into blogging about their hobbies it would all magically change!

It hasn’t worked for 30 years since computers were first introduced and it’s not going to happen that way… ever.

Teachers need to have different kinds of exposure to technology, and the only way that they will see why technology works in classrooms is to show it to them in classrooms. Classroom embedded professional development is rarely used because people think of it as being expensive. Of course, the real expense is continuing to do things that don’t work.

One model of classroom embedded PD is the GenYES model of students providing support for teachers in their own classrooms. It’s not the ONLY way, but for goodness sake, let’s try some different things!

Sylvia! I am going to look up the GenYES model after I write this to thank you for your comments. In our district, I am a teacher and a tech at my school. Sadly, the tech part overwhelms me so the teacher part plays a somewhat smaller roll. Three years ago, our school board decided they could save money by not placing anymore teachers in tech roles….grandfathering those of us in who were already here. In my humble opinion, this was a mistake because teachers and schools are a special culture all unto their own and sometimes a techy person from outside this culture has trouble connecting successfully. Additionally, our district, of 100 locations has hired 8 technology integrators. That gives us 2 integrators for every 25 schools. The general idea of an integrator is someone who helps teachers integrate technology into the classroom curriculum. My school, a large high school with 140 classrooms, hasn’t been able to incorporate an integrator into classroom lessons and, unfortunately, it is difficult to plan ahead far enough to get into their schedules as you can imagine with 25 schools to cover. Your “show them in the classroom idea” is quite honestly the ONLY WAY tech integration has a chance and with the recent deployment of our COWs (Computers on Wheels carts) I have made it a priority to be in the classroom to troubleshoot tech issues and also to bring Web2.0 tools to both teacher and student….It truly makes a difference to put a teacher/tech in the classroom with the instructor and combine that with the curriculum. So far, we have been successful. I still need to find a way to incorporate our area’s integrator. I don’t want to continue to do “things that don’t work” and I am constantly trying to find new ways to “be there” for the teacher who wants to integrate. I thank you for the suggestion regarding GenYES and will Google it immediately!!!!
Carol Burns

Dennis – you are dead on…but here is one of my concerns. I am currently teaching a required graduate class in Ed Admin to K-12 teachers who aspire to be school administrators. The class is “Instructional Strategies Using the Internet” and Web 2.0 factors large in the class. Two in the class this semester stated that this Web 2.0 stuff is interesting for teachers but that since they intended to be administrators, they did not see the relevance for a future administrator with this content. Wow!

The feedback from the graduate class for administrators just shows how much we need to work with them to demonstrate the uses for these 2.0 technologies. As I think more and more about how to address trainings with our teachers (I am a Technology Instruction Coordinator for a PK-8 school district), I am finiding that all of the teaching and training we do with these tools will mean nothing until we get the teachers using the technologies for their own use. We are looking into working with our teachers on a blogging/wiki workshop and, before we even touch the idea of them using it in their classroom, we want to get them using it for their own needs/interests to get a feel for it. If we can use the technologies to appeal to them and get them interested that way, I hope for the transition of using the technology in the classroom to be eaiser.

If you can get an administrator interested in reading/commenting on educational blogs and using the resources on the web for their OWN use, maybe they will then see the benefit of the technology and use their administrative top-down privledges to get their teachers interested in it as well. They are the ones who will set the technology integration tone in their buildings, so whether or not they are actually teaching with it, they will be influencing those who will be

Britt,
Yikes.
Forget the fact they would be responsible for the supervision of and hence the effectiveness of those same teachers…can they not see the value of the tools in their own professional growth and responsibilities?

Scott is right…they need a little re-framing.

Maybe these wannabe administrators should look at how businesses use these tools to be successful. Maybe then they’d give it some street cred.

It’s funny because one of my thoughts has always been that as more and more who buy in to this stuff become administrators, a lot of this change will be easier, but based on what you say, that’s still a ways off. Uh oh.

[...] Century Learning Posted by: dharter in Learning Will Richardson suggests that we need to get educators on board with the read/write web, before we can really hope to make widespread change in education.&nbsp; As I commented on his [...]

Wow, apparently you struck a chord. Is it normal for you to get 100+ responses?

I think your response is fascinating because I think it’s rare and I think it could be prescient. It makes total sense that if you are part of a network of like-minded (or at least like-interested) you would value these groups over new ones you don’t know. Clearly, these people all probably know each other but their networks are less transparent, more — oh you’re the guy from so-and-so — rather than you’re on my Twitter account.

Also, it has been an old problem in which teacher educators are some of the worst teachers around. My Ed Masters teachers could lecture for 2 hours on not lecturing in class. When Mark Prensky spoke at NCCE, he said that he could lecture us because we’re old and wee’re used to (ok, minor paraphrase there). It’s hard to teach in ways that don’t involve just blabbing until the bell rings; it takes courage, knowledge, and support.

A great post, Will, it makes me very envious of those who have such robust networks. When Wes Fryer showed up at NCCE and pulled up his Skype list he had 30-40 people who were online who could just chat and Scott Mcleod (not the cartoonist) spoke to us from Mumbai. It should be that way for everyone in education. I wish you could just plug into one like you might a electric socket.

This conversation is fascinating to me — it must be unusual to get 100+ responses. I’m new to the party, so this seems like something I’ve missed everyday. Nate you bring up an irksome point… the lecture about not lecturing. When will consultants, administrators and the like walk the talk? Or is that an old argument that gets thrown out once a “veteran” has earned their place? Hmm… We should all model best practice to the best of our abilities with every audience (or network) with whom we wish to learn.

Dennis, we don’t want to leave you out just because you are comment 100! I couldn’t agree more. There are many many folks out there without a “networked voice” that have valuable insights and who have intelligent dialog every day within their own physical networks of colleagues and students alike. Working in higher ed., what I see (and hope to help change) is that until folks use some of these new tools for themselves, they will never really present compelling reasons to use them to their colleagues and students. So, we need to present meaningful reasons and scenarios to them where they can leverage these newfound tools in personally and professionally meaningful/relevant ways. I have fallen into the trap of “talking the talk” without “walking the walk”… and my students have seen right through it – thankfully!
@Britt, I really agree with Kristin here… we need to connect all in our spheres of responsibility with meaningful and relevant scenarios whereby they can leverage these tools. If they don’t see these connections, we are either not helping them make/find them – or they don’t exist in the first place (I’m sure it is not quite this black-and-white…).

TODAY, MY SCHOOL became part of an UNblocking experiment!!!!! I’ve ranted, debated, pressured, prayed, begged and written to the decision makers for what seems like years and today is our day. The district has opened our filters and my TEACHERS can get to: Blogger, Flickr, Skype, Slideshare, research on abortion, sex education, drug research, alcohol and tobacco research and web hosting and social networking sites, from the hours of 5:30AM to 6:30PM. This is a start. This is a first. I now have to make sure what we do with these sites is relevant, teachers have proper training, and the use of these tools enhances curriculum. My bloggers can now work from inside the school firewall. We have a 10MG Metro E line out of our high school, the network is fast, and our computers are part of a 3 year refreshment project, so they are brand new…..we are ready to take this new found freedom out for a spin and see what it can do!!! Next hurdle: Open it up for the students….

Will, it didn’t go well at all. I’m tilting bureaucratic windmills. The pilot never actually started because the IT folks at the district level are scared…..what if the students “see” something, go home and tell mom and dad and the newspaper gets involved and then the district gets sued? That’s where I am now. I keep plugging along, but even at this meeting, when it was time to show some WOW tools of Web 2.0 to the small group, all my sites were blocked…the meeting creators didn’t unblock me for the sake of the one hour gathering. The really disturbing part is that I wasn’t even asking for access for my students, but for my teachers….adults, professionals…..teachers. As a pacifier, IT offered to allow me one computer in the teachers’ lounge with slightly more unfiltered access…..to what end, I’m not sure. I can prove the need for Web 2.0 tools and why our students should be learning to use them, but I can’t seem to get beyond the FEAR that exists at the levels above me….FEAR from the folks who control our access….Maybe it’s time to take another look at CIPA? I’m not a quitter and I have amazing energy to keep up this debate, but I need to know how to proceed and garner support from district people….please!!!
Carol

Very powerful statements……and right on target…..there simply has to be a way to get everyone onboard…..maybe some Web2.0 training for district administrators…..To understand the tool, you must first have a need for the tool.

I respectfully disagree. Filters do protect kids from both inadvertent and intentional access to inappropriate information, both at home and at school. Are they perfect – no. Can savvy kids get around them – sure. Do wireless and cell-based handheld devices raise new issues – yes. Should control of the filters be in the hands of teachers instead of IT admin – YES. Should students be taught to make healthy and safe decisions when on line – absolutely.
As long as there are unsupervised students, off-task behaviors, and teachers who shirk responsibility for keeping kids engaged while at school (and I am not saying many teachers do), I prefer there be filters. Is it the perfect solution? I don’t think so. So, continued conversation on this topic is critical.

My issue comes down to how much harm is being done by keeping the filters in place and denying the opportunities to use these technologies.

As Carol points out – in an all too typical argument – the rationale is that we have to block content so a parent doesn’t get upset about what lil Johnny or Jenny sees on the school computer and sues the school.

I would prefer that no filters exist on the school computers because I would prefer that my children be given the full opportunity to learn without education getting in the way. I also accept that this is not going to happen in today’s schools. High stakes testing, political pressure, and chronic underfunding will prevent reasonable reform.

I’m really looking forward to the Singularity Event in Education. I think what happens beyond that event horizon will be much more useful.

I agree wholeheartedly about the denial of opportunities. That is why I think that if there are to be filters, that the teachers should be the ones in charge of the filter restrictions, not IT folks and policies that haven’t a clue about what teachers are trying to accomplish daily in classrooms. If this were the case, then students would have the “full opportunity to learn”. I guess I see this issue the same way as I view inappropriate information on the magazine shelves in stores. Keep the inappropriate content above children’s eye level, out of reach, and in some cases, with protective covers that obscure the inappropriate content within (low-tech filters) from their wandering eyes. And, if for some reason they get access, then ID is required for full disclosure (purchase). Of course, the best case scenario is to raise children so that they neither had the desire or the need for such information. But we both know that this is not happening all that well. And, ‘funny’ things happen when a group of unsupervised peers are together…

Now, if you were my child’s teacher, I wouldn’t mind the absence of filters

I wouldn’t argue against putting the filter controls in the hands of the teacher, but it’s one more thing to ask teachers to do — and to blame them for when it goes bad.

The example of the magazine rack is a good one. I’m ok with this because the blocks on “inappropriate” don’t inadvertently block the rest. You can unambigously block a specific title — filter out specific and unambigous content.

The line on “inappropriate” is an interesting one. I’d want to put brown paper on the “Soldier of Fortune” and “Forbes” … I’m not so concerned about “Hustler” and “Playgirl.” I understand I’m probably not in step with the rest of the community on my definition of obscenity, but my point remains. The overall value of the magazine rack is not harmed. It’s actually enhanced because it provides value to a wider range of clients than would be possible without it.

The filters on the internet are not analogous. Filtering specific words is pointless because there are too many innocuous alternatives. MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, Ning, WordPress, Edublogs, Blogspot … these blocks and filters are not being applied in a rational manner because the limitations of the tools preclude it. Many people have discovered that this very blog about education is blocked … and posts about “That Space Which Would Be My Own” filtered simply because it’s mentioned. We’re not blocking specific content. We’re blocking whole modes of delivery without regard to content.

Our approach to school filtering is throwing a tarp over the whole rack, leaving only the daily newspaper and a small pile of Weekly Readers available. And we’ve put in a pitbull to make sure that nobody loosens the tarp to pull out even a copy of Newsweek or Time.

These efforts cripple the value of the Internet when used in schools, and does absolutely nothing about what kids look at at home, at a friends’ house, etc. In fact it almost guarantees that kids need not fear school/adult supervision because the teachers and administrators are usually blocked as well.

We’ve spent millions of dollars to equip and wire schools and now that we’re discovering just how much we can learn with them, we’re spending millions more to prevent the intellectual capitalization that our investment represents. We’re already beginning to hear about how little the investment in technology has provided in terms of outcomes.

Duh!

Take the wheels off your car and see how much value it has as transportation! On the upside, you won’t get into any accidents and you’ll neverNow, t get a speeding ticket. It renders the vehicle almost perfectly safe. And useless.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’m much to radical to be allowed to teach children. I’m not sure administrations are too happy that I’m teaching teachers. I keep trying to teach them to think and it makes everybody nervous.

Hah… that’s a good one. I really do understand your logic regarding the problems that our current filtering systems create for schools, teachers, and learning. I am amazed when I hear stories of legitimate sites likes blogs and wikis and the like being filtered out. But that is less a problem with filters as it is with those administering them. Keyword filtering is a losing battle to be sure. I still think teachers should hold that power. In terms of your comment that then they would be subject to blame when things “go bad” – they would be subject to the same blame with our without filters. So, it is not really a filter-specific issue. As for the “wheels on the car” analogy – I think that is a bit too extreme. A car without wheels cannot be used for transportation at all. There is still plenty of informative information that can be accessed with filters in place. Perhaps a better analogy is a car with underinflated tires – it takes much more energy to travel, the ride is not very good, and eventually you will have a blowout (just like the blowouts we get when sites we need are blocked!).

Anyway, great discussion. Thanks for sharing your perspective an insight.

[...] speakers on these new technologies. He’s hired to come to a classroom and talk about 21st Century skills, and is stopped cold in his tracks by a filter. Ironically, Richardson had just posted the [...]

I shared your post with the teachers participating in my technology staff development program (funding from EETT grant is for 33 out of 1500 teachers in my district) and the response was the same – AMEN!

With the EETT funding on the chopping block, not even this small percentage of teachers will be able to get specialized technology staff development. Here we have the one opportunity to give teachers some leverage…some skills to help students become successful, and that opportunity may well be taken away…even though it is such a small amount of teachers being effected, the ripple effect has been evident.

I completely agree with your post and encourage you to be brave and continue to speak out.

Will, I sent you an email telling you I’d be posting this story here since I couldn’t fit it in the “message” section of your “Contact” page. I know it doesn’t really go along with your blog entry, so feel free to remove it.
You probably don’t remember me, but we met at Trinity last year when you came to speak to us after being invited by Willy K.
I’m writing because you will love this story. My niece who attends a private school in town (not Trinity!) was brainstorming a list of synonyms for the word “big” in class yesterday. Although she was thinking of the following word in her head, another boy said it first, “Ginormous”. The teacher said, “Well, that’s not really a word. People say it a lot, but it’s not actually a real word.” This confused my niece since she could vividly remember just having read that it was added to the dictionary last year. When she got home, she was so excited to find that she remembered where she saw it…in her American Girl Magazine. So, she took the magazine to school to show her teacher that it is, in fact, a newly added word for dictionaries. The teacher said…wait for it… “If it’s not in my dictionary, then it’s not a real word and you can’t use it.” WHAT??? So, needless to say, a student who had actually taken personal time at home (time that’s usually overscheduled with loads of homework and afterschool activities) to explore a curiosity, only to have it squashed by a teacher who doesn’t realize that her out-of-date dictionary can’t match the up-to-date merriam-webster.com (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ginormous). Notice that the word is actually circa 1948!!!!
Feel free to reference this story at any time if you think it will help!

Interesting posts . . . as the Blackboard Administrator and Learning Technologist/Trainer, I confront these issues every day. Over 80% of our faculty are adjuncts. They have limited time to acquire technology skills as most are working full time jobs elsewhere and teaching for extra money. It is difficult to get many of them to even use Blackboard, a very easy web interface, to deliver course content. Many view it as a tool for distance learning. I teach some 1 credit face-to-face courses and use it exclusively for the repository of course content. My students are very appreciative of the ease of access to this material after class ends. I’ve looked at PowerPoint presentations put together by faculty. Even though they are trying to use technology, their visual delivery skills at times are questionable. Some colleges have staff available to work with the content experts (GUI designers and curriculum designers). In those institutions, I’m hopeful that the quality is much better. Some of the faculty I’ve talked to believe that students don’t have access to technology or don’t want to use it. Possibly, they are mirroring their own inner concerns. Many faculty who are forced to deliver their course content online just merely transfer their in-class material to a web-delivered format. Obviously, this is not effective. I’ve also found that some faculty can grasp how to use technology effectively and get excited about using it if we give them more concrete examples rather than just talking up the technology. It is far more meaningful to show them a wiki that has been developed in their subject area than to talk about the value of wikis in general.

I perceive we will not move to effective use of technology until we (1) develop(through content and curriculum experts) model courses that are shared; (2) re-define the criteria for measuring faculty effectiveness by implementing different outcomes than are used today (not teaching skills and exam results but student application skills); (3) incorporate more technology curriculum into teaching degrees; and (4) reward faculty for creative uses of technology (where the selection of technology is based on the instruction delivered not the need to use technology).

I will be giving a workshop in Mexico City on March 25th. And the one thing that is key to me is to use a task-based approach to introduce participating teachers to connectivism and the importance of personal learning networks in being 21st Century teachers that incorporate technology into their classrooms.

Just as you have said in this blog post. It is absolutely amazing how many educators complain about disengaged students, but then they deliver a powerpoint presentation and use a lecture-style format to “transmit” their knowledge on 21st Century learning and other topics. We educators need to model the approaches that we promote, not just know about them intellectually and then propagate the ineffective ways of those before us.

I rely a lot on Jane Willis’ model of task-based teaching and plan my sessions (lessons, workshops, etc,) setting objectives aligned with Edgar Dales cone-of-learning model juxtaposed with Bloom’s taxonomy. Then I just weave all the connectivism/technology content (or whatever the topic is) into this overall approach. I also look at my tasks and try to vary them with difficulty, pacing, multiple intelligences and taking note of left- and right-brain activities.

The teachers at my workshop are all required to attend with laptops. No death by PowerPoint and lecture formats, please! Let’s practice what we preach in the interest of 21st Century teaching and learning.

[...] from a number of the presentations up soon. In the meantime, it’s interesting to read what Will Richardson and David Warlick had to say about the event. While we don’t have video of Diane Ravitch and [...]

[...] what it means, if anything, but I just want to reflect for just a second or two on my post about 21st Century Skills for Teachers and the 130 comments and trackbacks that ensued. I’m not one to look at my stats very often [...]

[...] on a post by Will Richardson in which he reflects on the 130 plus comments that one of his earlier posts received. He asked the following questions within his post and I replied as indicated [...]

My class of ten year olds at school are blogging but only two out of 40 staff are bloggers! When the kids share their ideas with the whole school, the other kids ‘whoooop!’ but staff ‘gasp.’ If only the teachers could see themselves as learners too, we might open up opportunities for more effective learning for all. Ah well, I’ll keep pushing………..

Thanks Will for your post and I certainly agree that the skills need to begin with the educators.

I am on the front lines of this issue as a trainer of academic staff in southeast Asia.

Seems to me that the issue is simple. We are all reptilian and will do whatever will ensure our survival. As several respondents have mentioned, there are no “brownie points” in 21st century skills for academics – tenure depends on publishing research in journals. So while it sounds draconian, the only way to ensure that teachers ‘get it’ is to require the use of networking tools (or whatever other 21st century doodads are agreed on) as part of their job description, both in the recruitment phase and after hiring.

However, there are more fundamental issues here. Is it fair to require staff to do these things if they do not have computers in their classrooms (or easily available) and/or the students do not have computers at home? And is it fair to require it given that the curriculum and assessments (NCLB) are still rooted in 19th century factory-style education?

The administrators are the ones who need to ‘get it’ first. And their current reptilian requirement is to survive NCLB.

[...] published a post that as of this evening has 140 comments and 45 blog reactions. His hot topic? 21st Century Skills for Educators In the post, Will expressed his frustration with the gap between educators in his online network [...]

[...] Will Richardson sums it up so eloquently for me: …which is how in god’s name can we talk seriously about 21st Century skills for kids if we’re not talking 21st Century skills for educators first? The more I listened, the less I heard in terms of how we make the teaching profession as a whole even capable of teaching these “skills” to kids. Sure, there were mentions of upgrading teacher preparation programs and giving teachers additional time in the school day to collaborate, etc. But the URGENCY was all around the kids. Shouldn’t the URGENCY be all about the teachers right now? [...]

[...] Hot post by Will Richardson that’s received 146 comments and 52 blog reactions. He writes on 21st Century Skills for Educators: How in god’s name can we talk seriously about 21st Century skills for kids if we’re not talking 21st Century skills for educators first? The more I listened, the less I heard in terms of how we make the teaching profession as a whole even capable of teaching these “skills” to kids. Sure, there were mentions of upgrading teacher preparation programs and giving teachers additional time in the school day to collaborate, etc. But the URGENCY was all around the kids. Shouldn’t the URGENCY be all about the teachers right now? [...]

I see that the posting of the link in the show notes of our podcast showed up here. Jeff U pointed our audience to take a look at the continuing discussion going on here. Jeff Nugent, an instructional technologist, working in higher edu could not have been a more timely guest for the show. He provided many insights as to the divide between higher edu and our networked PLN world as well as pre-service teacher programs. What is promising are the PLN efforts at VCU and the leadership at the Curry School of UVA’s pre-service teacher program.

[...] school administrators. Their assignment this week was to review Will Richardson’s post “URGENT: 21st Century Skills for Educators (and Others) First ” and the 145-plus comments associated with the post. As a commenter in Will’s post, I [...]

[...] teachers not using technology and preparing our students with 21st century skills. This includes Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed where he asks; “Which leads to the second question which is how in god’s name can we talk [...]

I am a 55 year old consultant, former school administrator and former college professor. Although I have been using the internet for years, I only recemtly became involved blogging (http://risingsunconsultants.blogspot.com/) as a result of my interaction with David Carpenter while working togther at Hsinchu International School.

I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with your post. At one point you suggest that one of the values froms Blogs is that folks can learn from one another by exchanging thoughts and ideas. On the other hand yoou suggest that someone who does not understand or use this form of communication/leearning may be less worthy of learning from.

As someone very knowledgable in technology, I have no doubt that there is a great deal I can and will learn from you. However, jsut because (as my son who is a network engineer keeps telling me) I am a “techie wanna be”, doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything you can learn from me – especially interms of leadership, organizational development, change and transition, etc.

For many of us “Baby Boomers” technology can be very overwhelming at times. While some have embraced it with open arms, others have avoided it completely. However, from my experience, like all change, most have come to value technology is given the time and support to deal with our fears and our discomfort with asking questions and looking like we’re not up to speed.

You asked the question: “Am I a snob?” the answer is absolutely yes if you believe that someone without your knowledge and comfort with technology has nothing to offer you. Just as I would be a snob if I believe that someone without a Ph.D., who not spent 12 years as a university professor and did not spend 15 years as a senior school administrator had nothing to teach me about education.

In a recent posting on my blog (don’t have a wiki and in all honesty not 100% sure exactly why I would or wouldn’t want one) I discussed some of the important steps and issues involved in managing change and transition. “Change implies making … an essential difference, often amounting to a loss of original identity” (Webster’s Dictionary). If you notice, in this definition of change, the concept of loss is introduced. When change occurs, loss also occurs. Unless we allow opportunity for people to deal with the losses associated with change (transition), the change never really is implemented effectively. In other words, “change” is the what and “transition” is the how.

In order to be effective leaders/educators, we need to involve the people affected by the change (students, teachers, parents, staff, etc.) in the change process. We need to allow a process to occur which deals with people’s emotions. There needs to be intentional efforts made to allow people to experience their losses and deal with their emotions.

Be patient with rest of us Will and we will be open and eager to learn …

[...] thoughts arised when I read Will Richarson’s article, URGENT: 21st Century Skills for Educators (and Others) First which has initiated around 150 comments so far. Obviously, Will’s post hit a [...]

What a genuinely delightful post. So often our focus is on ‘fixing’ someone else or something else. In other words we too often see the problem as ‘out there’ when it is just as likely (if not more so) that the problem is ‘in here’.

A question – how many people teaching in our Universities even have any formal training (let alone a qualification) in teaching? What, 8 or 9%? Content experts are not teaching experts – time to focus on ourselves first!

[...] from the rooftops that computer literacy needs to be part of any good curriculum. Anyway, here is a link to an blog post about the urgency for computer literacy for teachers. And, here is a link supporting the learning of computer programming in a technology [...]

Will,
First of all, while I agree wholeheartedly with most of what you have to say, becoming a vegetarian is not going to save the world. Try becoming self sustaining, instead. In my house this means raising chickens for eggs and meat (if you can bear to butcher them after feeding them everyday–I personally can’t), eating venison or other game that you can hunt locally (this is the source of 80% of the meat I eat–and it supports our local environment by decreasing the population of deer that are running out of room to live because of over development), growing your own vegetables (this can be done in pots if you don’t have the luxury of a garden spot)and buying as much else from local producers and farmers as possible, thereby decreasing your carbon footprint from shipping in vegetables or anything else from more than 50 miles away.
Now that I have gotten that out of my system, I would love to see educators and administrators be technology adopters, rather than technology avoiders! In my district we can’t use blogs, wikis, or many other Web 2.0 tools, and quite honestly, I would be thrilled to see PowerPoint being used more regularly in the classrooms that I consult to–it would be better than nothing! Thanks for your inspiring perspective on things–I rely heavily on your book and your blog in my Johns Hopkins University course on Web 2.0 Tools in Education.
Beth